One of the first things we noticed when obtaining an older, high-quality pot or stone is that it often comes stored in a wooden box.  Known as a kiri-bako, these lightweight but very strong boxes keep things safe and allow for your collection to be stacked when storing them away.

Ueno Green Club

There are several people in the US that makes these boxes and the wood can be purchased in the US to make your own.  Often when acquiring a pot or stand in Japan, we have kiri-bako made so that the shipment has a better chance of arriving intact.  After shipping several stands to see them broken or destroyed the investment in the kiri-bako became more of a necessity than a luxury.

In our search, we discovered a kiri-bako maker in Osaka, Japan.  Soichiro Kobayashi is a third-generation maker of kiri-bako. On his web site he refers to…